Tokyo Babylon

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Fandom
Name: Tokyo Babylon (東京BABYLON)
Abbreviation(s): TB
Creator: CLAMP
Date(s): 1990-1993
Medium: manga, OVA, live action film
Country of Origin: Japan
External Links: CLAMP's Site/JP
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Tokyo babylon.jpg
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Tokyo Babylon is a supernatural themed shoujo manga written and drawn by the CLAMP group. It is set in the same universe as X/1999 which takes place nine years after Tokyo Babylon and one of the story strands picks up the stories of Subaru and Seishirou. Tokyo Babylon was adapted into two OVAs, a live action film and Drama CDs (audio dramas). The manga was published in Japan during the 90s and has since been translated into different languages.

The live action film is set a few years after the manga (with Subaru now being 21), but is loosely based on a story from volume 2.

Synopsis

Main protagonist is Sumeragi Subaru, the sixteen year old 13th head of the powerful onmyouji Sumeragi clan. He and his twin sister Sumeragi Hokuto live in Tokyo where Subaru is working as an exorcist. They are friends with Sakurazuka Seishirou, a veterinarian who, for some reasons, doesn't seem to mind having the almost ten years younger siblings around. However, Seishirou is part of the Sakurazuka clan, enemies of the Sumeragi for centuries, and his reasons for staying close to Subaru and Hokuto aren't as harmless as they think.

Fandom

Pairings

The by far most popular pairing in fanfiction is Seishirou x Subaru.

English-language Fandom

Tokyo Babylon had an active, but small internet fandom after the boom of animanga fandom in the 90s, relying on scanlations and fan translations for the manga. Fanfiction was hosted on private Archives and sites like Aestheticism.[1]

It is considered a yuletide fandom, although it's often cited among the fandoms that show the yuletide mod’s lack of knowledge when it comes to animanga sources and there is often discussion about its eligibility.[2]

German-language Fandom

German-language Tokyo fandom started at roughly the same time as English-language fandom and had another surge when the manga was released in German by Carlsen Comics in 2004, but remained a very small fandom in comparison to other CLAMP related fandoms. By then the German-language animanga fandoms were mostly using animexx.de for fanish output, which included fanworks like fanart, fanfiction, cosplay and more.[3]

Fanworks

Fanfiction

Tropes & Fanon

The tropes in fanfic range from humourus to fluff and dark and angsty. The dark ending of the manga story and darkish continuation in X/1999 led to a certain amount of fix it fic, and also to more deathfic and fic with unhappy, dark endings. Most of the fic in the fandom is centered around the main pairing of Seishirou x Subaru. More information on the pairing page

Examples

Recs

Fanart

Doujinshi

Cosplay

Resources

References